New York Times Mag on Chimp Rights
Renowned author and journalist Charles Siebert writes about the Nonhuman Rights Project for this week’s cover story in the New York Times Magazine. Siebert accompanies attorney…
Updates on Legal Rights for Nonhuman Animals
Since the Nonhuman Rights Project filed its first series of lawsuits in December, there have been several other initiatives to secure legal rights for nonhuman animals.…
The New Conversation about Persons
When the Nonhuman Rights Project filed its first three lawsuits earlier this month, inviting judges in New York State to recognize four captive chimpanzees as “legal…
Chimpanzee Personhood: What the Media Said
As soon as we started filing our first three lawsuits last week, we were deluged with media interest from around the world. Here are just a…
Chimpanzee Personhood: What the Judges Said
It’s a little unusual for a judge to wish you good luck as you head off to appeal his decision. But that’s exactly what happened when…
First-Ever Lawsuit Filed for Chimpanzee Seeking Legal Personhood
This morning, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed suit in Fulton County Court in the state of New York on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee, who…
Why the Animal Rights Movement Is Still a Contradiction in Terms
How’s the animal rights movement doing? If you rate it by the simple question “How many animals have rights?” you’d have to say that so far…
The Next Few Weeks …
It’s just a few weeks now until the Nonhuman Rights Project files the first-ever lawsuit on behalf of a chimpanzee seeking the right to “bodily liberty”…
Nonhuman Persons and The Slippery Slope
More about Gregory Berns’ article “Dogs Are People, Too“, which I wrote about earlier this week. Berns has been getting quite a lot of pushback from…
Why ‘Experts’ Get So Confused about Legal Rights for Nonhumans
Is their confusion perhaps deliberate? An article in The Week asks: “Should Apes Have Legal Rights?” As the Nonhuman Rights Project prepares to file its first…
Why Humans Don’t Want Nonhumans as Persons
Steven Wise, animal rights attorney and founder of The Nonhuman Rights Project, discusses why we humans don’t like the idea of other animals being recognized as…
The Nonhuman Rights Project
The great irony of the animal rights movement is that there is, to this day, still only one species that has any rights at all: humans.…
Of Humans and Persons
Are all humans “persons” as far as the law is concerned? Are all “persons” humans? People manage to get quite confused about this, and it’s a…
Monkey Business and Nonhuman Rights
NPR’s Linton Weeks explores the topic of animal rights, monkey rodeos, and the work of the Nonhuman Rights Project in seeking certain legal rights for specific…
River Recognized as a Legal Person
It’s a first in modern legal history: A river in New Zealand has been recognized as a legal person having certain rights and interests. Under a…
Leading Scientist Says Chimpanzees Should Have Moral Standing
If you want to understand human nature, learn from other animals – especially chimpanzees. That’s the word from one of the world’s experts on chimpanzee behavior, Frans de Waal. He’s been studying chimpanzees for nearly 40 years, mostly at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center …
Missouri Law Would Ensure No Rights to Nonhumans
A bill working its way through the Missouri legislature would prevent any future legislation in the state from granting “human-like” rights to animals. State representative Ward Franz said his bill is prompted by “outside animal-rights organizations coming into the state trying to impose their will on Missouri’s people and businesses.”
The Rights of a Nonhuman Person
What rights might a chimpanzee or a dolphin have when we consider these nonhumans as persons with the capacity for legal rights. Eric Michael Johnson writes about this in his “Primate Blogs” at Scientific American:
Which of the Following Is a Person?
John Rennie, former editor-in-chief of Scientific American, looks at each of these species and wonders which of them might qualify for recognition as legal persons as opposed to legal things.
Big Step Forward for Rights of Dolphins and Whales
At the world’s largest science conference, scientists and ethicists presented the case for recognizing dolphins and whales as non-human persons.